1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a tubular label having an inwardly facing surface provided thereon with lottery indicia or any other arbitrary information and adapted to be wrapped around a container body, and an elongated tubular member, as well as a labeled container.
2. Discussion of the Background
A container conventionally know as that for tea, juice or any other soft drink includes a container body made of glass or plastic adapted to be filled with content such as soft drink, and a tubular label which is provided thereon with printed information such as brand, artwork and contents description and wrapped around the container body.
On the other hand, promotion campaigns for beverage or any other products are frequently held to increase sales through providing purchasers with various premiums or bonus prizes which can be awarded by purchasing the products or participating in the campaigns. Such campaigns commonly provide various campaign participation means such as a campaign application seal designed to be bonded on the surface of the label of a product, or printed campaign-related information (e.g., winning or losing symbol, or awarded points such as xe2x80x9c1 point, 5 points, etc.) provided on the inwardly facing surface of the label on a container body of a product
Of the above conventional campaign participation means, the application seal bonded on the label is likely to become a target for mischievous conduct by someone who intends to peel the seal away from the label at the store before a campaign participant purchases a product.
Conventionally, campaign-related information with different contents such as winning/losing indicia and awarded points are printed in separate printing steps, so that the labels with different contents are separately prepared. These printings are performed by known printers used for gravure printing. This separate printing manner requires separate printing units or parts such as print rolls to be prepared for the respective printing steps. In actual campaign, a less number of the winning labels are usually prepared as compared with the losing labels. Particularly for the campaigns with expensive bonus prizes, the proportion of the winning labels to the losing labels tends to be greatly reduced, or a small number of the winning labels would be enough for such campaigns. This increases the manufacturing costs of the winning labels under the conventional printing manner with the separate print rolls. It is also troublesome to properly mix the winning labels into the losing labels.
For adapting to varied campaign participation means, a different campaign participation information, lottery indicia or the like must be prepared by additional printing parts such as print rolls.
It is possible to arrange winning symbols and losing symbols on a single print roll. However, the proportion of the winning symbols to the losing symbols cannot be freely adjusted due to a limited surface area of the single print roll. This condition is also applicable to the single print roll carrying different awarded points, xe2x80x9c1 pointxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9c3 pointsxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9c5 pointsxe2x80x9d, etc.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a tubular label adapted to be used as lottery, campaign application ticket, etc., that is capable of preventing mischievous conducts at the store or any other places, and providing purchasers with ease to confirm given information such as winning or losing symbols.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a tubular label adapted to be used as a lottery, campaign application ticket, etc., on which given information can instantly be printed through a printing means having a simplified construction, so that an elaborate plan can be worked out for campaigns using lotteries, campaign application tickets, etc.
In accordance with one aspect of the present invention, there is provided a tubular label with pre-printed fixed information adapted to be wrapped around a container body of a container with an inwardly facing surface of the tubular label contacting the container body and the pre-printed fixed information being visible from the outside of the container, which includes printed arbitrary information such as lottery indicia provided on the inwardly facing surface by a non-impact printer in such a manner as to be invisible through the outwardly facing surface of the tubular label.
The pre-printed fixed information includes brands, contents descriptions, commercial messages, etc., which commonly appear on labels. The printed arbitrary information includes lottery information or indicia of two or more different contents for each campaign, indicative of xe2x80x9cwinxe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9closexe2x80x9d, rewarded points such as xe2x80x9c1 pointxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9c5 pointsxe2x80x9d, etc., campaign qualification information such as ID numbers for verifying the participant""s qualification to host companies or organizers of the campaigns through telephone, Internet, etc., or other types of campaign-related information.
Since the printed arbitrary information is thus provided on the inwardly facing surface of the tubular label, it is unlikely to become a target for mischievous conducts at the store or any other places, unlike the conventional campaign participation means with an application seal such as a separate tack label indicative of xe2x80x9cwinxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9closexe2x80x9d bonded on the label. In addition, a purchaser can easily check if he or she won or lost by simply removing the tubular label from the container of the purchased product. This is suitable for the campaign products with lottery, application tickets, or the like attached thereto.
As an additional advantage, the non-impact printer such as an inkjet printer capable of printing varying information used for printing the arbitrary information is programmable to easily and instantly print varied information contents including different representations on the labels.
According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided an elongated tubular member adapted to be cut into individual tubular labels, which includes printed arbitrary information patterns, each being indicative of lottery indicia or the like, respectively provided at portions respectively corresponding to the individual tubular labels on the inwardly facing surface of the elongated tubular member by a non-impact printer, in which the printed arbitrary information patterns are invisible through the outwardly facing surface of the elongated tubular member.
With the elongated tubular member having the above arrangement, it is possible to successively and easily provide the individual tubular labels with two or more information contents properly arranged or ordered, enabling a simplified label application process.
According to still another aspect of the present invention, there is provide a method of manufacturing an elongated tubular member adapted to be cut into individual tubular labels, which includes feeding out a film having a first surface and a second surface, printing arbitrary information patterns at portions respectively corresponding to the individual tubular labels on the first surface of the film by a non-impact printer in such a manner as to render the arbitrary information patterns invisible through the second surface of the film, and forming the film into a tubular shape with the first surface facing inwardly by joining lateral edges of the film together.
According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a labeled container, which includes a transparent container body, and the tubular label described above wound around the transparent container body with an inwardly facing surface of the tubular label contacting the transparent container body. The tubular label has the inwardly facing surface provided thereon with the printed arbitrary information. The transparent container body is adapted to be filled with contents, which renders the printed arbitrary information invisible from the outside of the container.